2 Willow Road and Burgh House

2 Willow Road

The place I most like visiting in London is Hampstead. It has a village feel, leafy lanes, little alleyways, Blue Plaques galore and there are numerous houses to visit. There is, of course, Hampstead Heath and wild swimming. Sigmund Freud lived here (his house is a wonderful place to visit), and there is the Keats Museum, Kenwood House, Burgh House, Fenton House, the Hill Garden & Pergola and 2 Willow Road. Hampstead is the former home of writers and artists.

I had visited all these lovely places except 2 Willow Road. A word about booking. Tours and self-guided visits are bookable two weeks in advance on a Thursday from the date you wish to visit. The house is open only on Thursdays and Saturdays. I booked a tour for me and my friend. The house is run by the National Trust, and due to copyright, photography is not allowed, so I'm afraid you are left with my most excellent descriptions (!) and the NT website for 2 Willow Road. Even the website lacks photos for the same reason, but there is a photo of the desk I will be mentioning. It is unusual. There is also no on-site toilet for visitors and no shop. So everything I am going to tell you has been memorised from the visit. Forgive me if I've got anything wrong.

My friend and I arrived in time to eat our lunch over on the heath opposite, making use of the bench dedicated to Erno Goldfinger, the architect and owner of 2 Willow Road. Erno designed the house and lived in it with his family from 1939. The house is very modern and there was some controversy over the building of it after the block of cottages on the site were demolished.

The Goldfinger Bench

The entrance is a small dark hallway. Light is taken where possible and there is a wall of glass squares by the door with little ledges to house knick-knacks. To the right is small toilet and basin. The cistern is set behind a panel. At the back of the hall is a door which leads down to a basement, which is now a private residence, so the door is sealed off. A sculpture nestles by the spiral staircase leading up to the first floor.

The dining room was the first room we visited. All the rooms, front and back, have large windows so light floods in. The window cills are deep and long, ideal to keep possessions or plants on. The floor is concrete here and the dining table and chairs remind me of classroom furniture. A wooden topped table with steel legs, and the chairs have wooden backs and seats, with steel legs. It is basic and functional. At the end of the room is a tiny, windowless kitchen where Goldfinger's wife, Ursula, managed to whip up dinners for dinner parties. There is a dumb waiter which goes up to the next floor where the nursery is.

The house has moveable space as room dividers can make a room cosy, or opened up, larger. Art fills walls and the dividers. Here you can find pieces by Henry Moore (who lived in Hampstead for a time) Picasso, Max Ernst and Lee Millar and Roland Penrose (whose own house I visited a few years ago).

Behind the wall divider is the study. A huge room with an unusual desk - the draws fan out. The walls are stacked with box files from Erno's work. To the back of the room are two steps up to what looks like a wooden stage. It was built this way to accommodate the flat downstairs, but there is storage space beneath. There is a photo of it on the website. Here is shelf space for the old cine film cameras. A door at the back leads to the living room. There is also a door straight off the landing.

The living room has a long armless sofa draped with a colourful throw. Behind is a bookcase housing numerous art books and open space for artworks. There are two moving art works in this room. There is an old TV, a fireplace and coffee table, as well as another piece of furniture against the wall containing arts works. A balcony runs the length of the outside which overlooks Hampstead gardens. Behind this room is a smaller study with full bookshelves.

Up the spiral stairs to the top floor where natural light floods through ceiling windows. A bookshelf stands to the right of the stairs. The main bedroom is to the front of the house. The double bed is low. In fact all seating is low and we laughed about how at our ages we would struggle to get up! The room is very plain, but has an en-suite bathroom with light coming in from the roof. Next door is a guest bedroom with a single foldaway bed, a chair, I think there was a desk and chair, and a basin. Next door there is a separate bathroom and toilet, again with light flooding in from above. I loved the way this was done.

In the corridor at the end is the dumb waited to serve the nursery which is at the back of this floor. It runs the full length of the house and has room dividers as a nurse used to sleep here with the children. Storage is built in as it is in all the rooms, making me think of Eltham Palace. This is a particularly plain room, but I think kept that way so it didn't matter if the children drew on the walls. There isn't really any furniture in here, just a wooden dolls house with wooden furniture built by Erno Goldfinger and a cabinet.

We were given time to wander around ourselves before we exited the house and moved into the former garage where we watched a film about the family and the house.

My impression of the house is one cleverly designed, functional, but not particularly homely. With such plainness, and quite sparse in places, it seemed to lack something, but a fascinating house nonetheless. I liked the living room the best and the use of light throughout the house with large windows and light from above. Everything in the house is original, just as it was left. I really enjoyed my visit.

And now the one everyone asks. Where does James Bond and Ian Fleming fit into this? Apparently, Ian Fleming took names from people he never met. James Bond was the name of an author of ornithology, and the name Goldfinger came up at a golf club where Fleming was playing golf with a cousin of Ursula's. Erno wasn't too happy to be associated with Fleming's book, or so it goes, but came round to it. So there we have it. True or not? You be the judge.

After our tour, we headed towards Burgh House as they have a rather nice cafe. We sat in the garden over tea and a shared cake before strolling around the house before it shut. The house is free to visit and has a few nice rooms, but also houses various art exhibitions. Should you want your wedding there, there is a nice music room you can hire. I sent my son details when he was looking for a venue. The art is always very interesting and there is a little shop too, though it had closed by the time we made it round the house.